Sentiments On Common Sense

A couple of months ago my wife got her Chinese drivers license. Today she decided that she wanted to drive downtown to see the new baby of one of our teachers.. The baby boy was born on Friday morning (very early!). So, she is driving and I am enjoying some time to write a blog post. The kids are in the back of the van. The baby is asleep, and the 4 year old is coloring in her Hello Kitty coloring book. Life is good.

__________________________________________

“The U.S. Department of Commerce ranked 55 industry sectors by their level of IT intensiveness. Education ranked was ranked 55- the lowest. Behind coal-mining.”

This is the opening line in the video embedded here. I think it is certainly worth watching. The video from the Consortium of School Netwoks (CoSN) and Pearson Publishing features a pretty impressive cast of speakers addressing the idea of “Learning to Change” and “Changing to Learn”. Interviewees in the video include Keith Krueger, CEO for the Consortium for School Networks, Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, Yong Zhao- Executive Director of the Confucius Institute, College of Education, Michigan State University, Chris Dede, Professor of the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, author of “A Whole New Minds”, Daniel Pink, Ken Kay, and President of Partnership for 21st Century Skills- E-Luminate group to name a few.

As digital leaders we must address the gaps listed in this video. This isn’t new information. This isn’t something we have not heard before. The problem is not that the gap exists; it is that the progress toward addressing the changing needs of our school communities is changing slower than the school community themselves.

My daughter will go to school next year as a kindergartner and we should be ready to launch her education career with goals for her centering on creation, creativity, personal growth, collaborative environments to enhance her learning. She will (hopefully) graduate with some sort of certificate (will we call it a diploma in 12 years). She will turn 18 and will be an adult. I fear that she she experience a set of schools in which she has to power=down and slow-down and perhaps dumb-down her learning to meet the needs of the schools and communities. Are we the reason these schools continue to operate. Do we as leaders continue to perpetuate by default or perhaps fear?

Some people want schools essentially be museums of schooling from our childhood, and yet the tools we have to change the way we do our work and learn in our work has changed dramatically. If students are finding an environment that is more rich and filled with more opportunities to collaborate, learn, share and socialize in constructive ways outside of school, what role does school play in the child’s and their families learning environment. Is the role of the school simply to be the gatekeeper of learning? Are schools the watchdog of assessment? Why does it need to be a place at all? Do schools operate so that the rest of the world can go on with children under foot and requiring supervision?
These are just a few of the questions that came to my mind as I watching this set of interviews. Believe me the more questions I ask the more I have to ask!

_____________________________

Watch the video. 5 minutes 35 seconds of time that I think you will find is well spent.

On a side note…
This is a very well done video on many levels including some nice camera angles and high quality sound. The best part about it is the fact that the message does not get lost in the video itself. A viewer is engaged into a conversation. My compliments to the producers!

Learning to change
Technorati Tags: Learning to Change, Changing to Learn, 21st Century Literacy

My school is pulling efforts together on both campuses to raise funds for Myanmar (Burma) relief are part of the international school community efforts that are taking place around the globe. We are receiving frequent updates from the school director of the International School of Yangon outlining some of the efforts that are being taken on behalf of the people of that country. His last message passed on to us said…

Right now we are running truckloads of food, water, medicine to monasteries, orphanages and schools in the delta. Though foreigners are not allowed, our local staff can make deliveries when accompanied by a monk to clear roadblocks. We have about forty students shopping, packing and loading trucks. Money is often difficult to bring into Myanmar so we are working with a local NGO managed by one of our parents. Funds are needed to continue the effort.

- Director International School Yangon

Note to your right on my blog is a widgit that is tracking our donations. Click on the widgit if you are interested in donating. Every little bit helps and there are plenty of ways to pay. All funds will be directed through International Development Enterprises which is run out of the United Kingdom and is the NGO mentioned in directors’ message above.

Our thoughts and prayers to the people of Myanmar (Burma)!

Educational Origami author has done a nice job of summarizing some of the characteristics of the 21st Century Educator.

They ask..

But what about the 21st Century Teacher, what are the charactoristics we would expect to see in a 21st Century Educator. We know they are student centric, wholistic, they are teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area.

I ask…

As Digital Leaders how do these change?

What are our obligations to the greater organization and how do these attributes expand or contract when taken to a leadership level?

If we assign the attributes of the 21st Century Learner to the effective Digital Leader we could ask…

What does being a Collaborator, an Adaptive Leader, and an information, media and technology savvy leader look like in practice?

How does being a communicator, a visionary, a risk taker and a model for the above attributes contribute to more effective student learning in classrooms?

Your thoughts on these questions would be appreciated. Other questions to consider would be embraced!

Technorati Tags: 21st Century Learner, 21st Century Learner, 21st Century Digital Leadership

I just finished reading Shaun McElroy’s posting to U Tech Tips about the horrible earthquake catastrophe in Chengdu in Central China. Things like this happen and sadly we all have our stories. My family and I missed the tsunami by a mere few hundred miles and a random vacation decision. My wife and daughter were in the sub-third floor off of Nanjing Lu in downtown Shanghai when they evacuated the building due to the earthquake yesterday. Meanwhile 1100 or so miles away 10,000 or more people lost their lives.

BBC News reports that:

Right away, guys like Robert Scoble, the uberblogger who’s a huge evangelist
for Twitter and is followed by over 20,000 people, were “retweeting”
messages from people on Twitter in China. Within an hour or so, using
Twitter location and search tools, people had identified two
English-speaking young men, and soon after a third, who were using
Twitter in Chengdu, about 95 kilometers east of the epicenter. Their
eyewitness accounts, with aftershocks reported in near-real time and
reassuring accounts that the damage — at least in Chengdu — didn’t seem
severe, were really useful.

Thanks to twitter… a simple message was sent from Shanghai and my entire network of family, friends and fellow tweets knew that Shanghai was ok. Whoever thought that a mere 140 characters could be so powerful.

Check out Shaun’s posting for a full story about how Twitter has become a positive force for global communications.

For a report from two expats (one international school teacher) go to: http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/accounts_from_americans_in_che.php

My last post, I noted that I often fail at buying/getting gifts for my wife in a weak attempt to make a point.

I apparently made the point, but my wife told me I “never fail” at giving gifts! Marriage is a humbling experience, but it is that sort of positive feedback that makes a guy wanna go out there and buy his wife more gifts just for more positive feedback!

I have been writing a lot lately about the benefits of leadership in schools incorporating blogging into their professional practice. Frankly speaking, I am afraid the message continues to be passed along to the admin in the schools out there by the teachers and tech leaders who can see the forest for the trees and occasionally have some success. Christopher D. Sessums recently did a great post on the “Beginner’s Mind Blogging: A Brief Reflection” that is very well done! The best part of the post, besides to summary text is the YouTube flick of some teachers describing their best efforts to use the Web 2.0 tool in their own professional practice. As he states…

“…a set of fresh eyes, ears, and minds, sharing their reflections on blogging and their “business”

Check it out here.

Following up on the video, Mr. Sessums outlines what he feels is the best part of blogging for himself as an educator-surveyor (I think I will write him to find out what exactly that means), is that he finds his work as a blogger a promotional part of his work. His blog has lifted him to new work and found him able to ply his trade in new ways, in new places, with new people.

Scott McCleod notes in his CASTLE project materials that one of the main reasons for digital leaders to blog is for “Branding”. In a sense, this is what Mr. Sessums is doing in his work. Scott states,

As real estate agents know, perhaps the first question that relocating families want answered is “Where are the good schools?” Certain school districts, and certain schools within districts, have reputations for providing high-quality learning experiences for children. These school organizations are the ones that attract families with high social capital and high-achieving children.

Parents are increasingly checking out school web sites as part of their relocation decision- making. As noted in previous posts, the same messages from the principal that create warm, fuzzy feelings of community, belonging, and academic excitement also are perfect for outsiders who want to see what the school is all about. It would be fairly difficult for a relocating family to acquire several months worth of newsletters, e-mails to parents, etc., but the public availability of a blog ensures that everyone – existing stakeholders, relocating families, realtors, potential corporate partners, and other outside community members – can see the wonderful things that are occurring in the school building.

In my world of competitive school marketing, this is more true that I care to think about day in and day out. The fact that the school down the road gets more kids because of location is hard enough, but if we start to lose clients because of the lack of brand awareness– well– I don’t even want to go down that road with a demanding parent community and board. Parents not only want quality education, they want their school they investing their children’s education into to be a recognizable and highly touted organization as well. In the states it was about allocations of funding. The more kids, the more budget one had to work with through the year. Either way, we want kids in seats till we are full.

Digital leaders do have a bit of a problem though. The problem is that the commitments they hold may prevent them to completing those blog posts. Time is the resource we never have enough of and when we get it we spend it quickly! MIT professor, Dr. Henry Jenkins notes in his blog post Why Academics Should Blog that,

The crucial point is that running a blog is a commitment, and has to be
understood as part of a larger set of professional obligations. When I
first began blogging as an academic, I sought advice from other
bloggers. They stressed that it was important to set a schedule for
publication for your blog and stick with it. It mattered less whether
you blogged once a week or once a day, so long as you were consistent
in putting up material.

Principals and school leaders note the last paragraph carefully. Announce your posting schedule and stick to it! It is NOT about posting daily. It is about posting and posting consistently. Making it part of the professional life and seeing it become “the place” to learn about the school.

Thank you to Scott McLeod, Christopher D. Sessums, Dr. Jenkins and Drew

I wrote this post on the way to the Learning 2.008 conference planning meeting with Jeff Utecht in the van with me and my soon-to-be tech teacher wife Amanda who authors www.sometechsense.com. One of the exciting outcomes of the planning meeting was the opportunity to get involved with the Learning 2.008 EdubloggerCon. Check out Jeff’s link about this upcoming conference and event. This is going to be good folks! Click on the logo to the left to sign up!

One of my former colleagues Reece who is a technology teacher in the Middle East responding to my blog post about blogging administrators asked,

“Interesting post but for clarity, could you define what you think blogging is? I know many staff and students and students at your school use blogging software but do you think that many of them are actually “blogging”? I ask because it’s very hard to find good examples of student or class blogs (so does Will Richardson BTW: http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/looking-for-student-blogging/) so I’m interested in learning more about administrator’s blogs. Are you conversing back and forth with the parent community via your blog and linking to connected themes and ideas or are you using it to post a recap of the week?”What is the difference from a “blog” with no commenting and a “webpage”.

Side note here: One of the keys to success in communicating to a school community as an administrator is to “know your audience”. That being said, I know my audience here and it is computer users. Let’s face it readers– if you are reading this chances are YOU are a technology user and most like a blogger yourself. So…. ahem…

Reece, as you are well aware, there is no difference between a blog with no commenting being open and a webpage. We have decided to stop calling blogs that are not open to comments “blogs” in my school, instead calling them “information sites” or “web pages”. This all makes sense but the story gets more interesting from here.

All in all sharing information is easy, “sharing” our own web space is tough and a little scary.

Common Sense would tell all of us that a principal or central office administrator better have a high level of trust with their community before laying out thoughts, ideas and information to their community and asking for comments. Even commenting with approval is a door that many administrators may not be willing to go through… at least not immediately. The thought of even more emails to go through and to respond frightens even the most effective communicators and tech-savvy administrators. Some of these ladies and gentlemen get upwards of 100′s of emails a day and many- no MOST- require at least some sort of response.

The funny thing is that my experience last year as a building principal when I opened up commenting on my blog was not that dramatic and the results were as follows (I hope you are all sitting down for this):

- Not a single noteworthy comment.
- One question about busing.
- many hits weekly from my community and from around the world.

Knowing my colleague Reece the way I do, I will predict his response:

“Yea, but Andy, let me play devils advocate here. Did you invite comments?”

Answer: No, I did not. I didn’t go out there and ask questions, ask for responses.

What I did do though was post some response rules that were basic common sense– no cussing, spitting, name-calling, don’t ask personal questions, don’t expect a response to all comments, etc. (smile) I did, on a frequent basis, ask for ideas on things that the readers (primarily my parent community), and I did not a single response.

If you are to go to a few principal’s blogs currently in use on the web, very few have commenting and if they do very few have comments. One has to ask themselves, “Is the world ready for this type of idea exchange, or does this venue for idea exchange really work for schools?”

When giving a gift to my wife (remember: Mom’s day is Sunday May 11th!) I often fail horribly. When receiving my horrible gifts though she kindly reminds me that it is the “thought that counts”.

Perhaps available commenting on a blog is a gift of openness to our school community that shows that not only is your door to your office open but also the virtual door to you as school leader is open too.

I think the risk is low if your commenting guidelines are clear.

BTW.. Reece: I would leave a comment on your blog but you didn’t leave your URL for me!

Technorati Tags: digital leadership, blogging, commenting